No More Questions From Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Please!

Earlier this week, Barack and Michelle Obama appeared on The View to talk about the day’s Hot Topics, or whatever. (Michelle can’t believe that the woman in Idaho who got gum in her hair went to the emergency room and agrees with Joy that the emergency room shouldn’t be used for hair related problems even if it is a lot of gum!) Some people have complained that the President of the United States shouldn’t even be appearing on The View in the first place, which seems like a decent argument/complaint but that ship sailed a long time ago. At this point we should just all be glad that the candidates in a general election year aren’t appearing on a special episode of Wipe Out! where the mud is red white and blue paint and the boxing gloves have important issue keywords on them. “Oh, and there goes Mitt Romney, taken down with one punch by Social Security.” PLOP! But, so, I stumbled across a clip from the episode in which Elisabeth Hasselbeck “grills” Obama on some of the important questions concerning American voters in this troubled economy (you can watch the clip here) and it suddenly made me so angry. It’s pretty natural to get angry when Elisabeth Hasselbeck opens her mouth because so much of what comes out is self-righteous, unearned, total nonsense. And such is the case here except that she is doing it in front of the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Like, really holding his feet to the fire as if she has a mandate from the American people* to ask the tough questions, even if she herself doesn’t understand the wording of the questions. (I also like in that clip how she feels the need to point out that she likes Barack and Michelle Obama personally, just not politically, again as if that is her duty as a Judge of the Court of Thinking and Political Philosopher to separate the two. We are rational creatures are we not?!) I mentioned to Kelly how angry I was that a fucking reality show contestant had been secretly and mysteriously elevated to the point of Valued Opinion Haver in our society such that she was then granted access to the President of the United States, and Kelly asked if I was talking about the Conan segment where he yells about that, and I hadn’t even seen the Conan segment yet! So then I watched the Conan segment:

Ha ha. Seriously! (What this proves, of course, is that I should have my own talk show. Right? I am sure that is what this proves. Me and Conan O’Brien had the same independent thought one time ergo give me a TV show. It’s called logical rhetoric, and it’s a tautology.) But, so, Conan makes a good if at this point repetitive point: WHO THE FUCK IS THIS WOMAN TO BE QUESTIONING THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES? Let’s make something very clear: I am not arguing that the President is infallible or that no one should ask the President questions. You know I am not arguing that. The President is a Bloopers Machine, and he should be asked difficult, gotcha questions on a daily basis. Just not by former reality show contestants on a bloviating garbage show hosted by a group of self-satisfied hens. Remember when Star Jones said that God had blessed her by not killing her in the Tsunami that took 300,000 other lives? Or how about when Sheri Shepard said she didn’t know whether the world was round and that maybe it was actually flat in her first two weeks on the show. THIS IS A REAL SHOW? AND WE PRETEND THAT THESE PEOPLE HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY THAT IS WORTH LISTENING TO?

Conan took up the cause again last night in another clip clarifying his “position”:

The throw away point that Conan defends against, that somehow he was just saying the things he said in the first clip because he is a liberal**, which–PUH-LEASE–brings up an even more curious question: aren’t conservatives embarrassed to have her on their team? The fact that she really DOES represent some brand of republican brain trust on The View, to spar on equal footing with Whoopi (LOL, come ON, what are we TALKING ABOUT ANYMORE?) should be a red flag to someone who believes in smaller government, personal resonsibility, and legislating against women’s reproductive freedom. It’s a bummer!

Anyway, I know Conan is joking when he urges a constitutional amendment against reality shows being allowed to ask the President questions unless they win their show, but I really do think we should put an end to Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s access. Take away her backstage pass! Put her in the bleachers. Give her a pair of binoculars and a score card. She can watch the game just like everybody else. Have fun! Shut up!

*The problem of course being that she kind of DOES have a mandate from the American people, one that was admittedly purchased whole cloth for her by ABC, but which grants her this audience-approved license. It says a lot more about us than it does about her. That being said, we can take her mandate away at any time, so why don’t we take her mandate away?
**The counter argument would be that it’s no better to have Jon Stewart, say, ask the President questions. Honestly, that’s fine. Let’s not have either of these people ask the President questions. I do think one of them is worse because one of them is a fucking idiot, but no, yes, leave the questions to serious people. That’s fine!

Can we all just as a society condemn The View to Garbage Town and never speak of it again? This show, much like the part of CNN that has Will.I.Am holograms and views Twitter as an Important Thing To Be Taken Seriously, is kind of dumbing down our society and culture in a way that I find to be very frustrating.

I saw the conan clip earlier. I really dont get the outrage here. If it was Bush and a liberal reality show contestant on the view asked him about the economy, would you all be that mad? What is wrong with asking a politician a question about political matters? The political tribalism needs to be toned down a bit I think.

As annoying as I find Elisabeth Hasslebeck, I’m actually okay with her asking those questions. Everyone knows where she stands, and I’m sure no one on the show was surprised that she pulled that question on Obama.
I think it says more about Obama that he gave her a straight answer…and somehow avoided using the phrase “get the fuck outta here” anywhere in his response. Very presidential. In all seriousness, he wasn’t obligated to answer a stooge like her, I’m sure (I hope?) most of the country recognized that as well.

There are a LOT of things you can say about Hasselbeck, and there are PLENTY of criticisms you can make about her question — like how it was basically just this gross attempt at self-aggrandizement, to look like she’s a serious journalist and stick it in the face of everyone who thinks she’s just an empty-headed token on a garbage talk show, and how the main problem was how embarrassingly AWKWARD it was. Like when you’re at a party and everyone is stupid-drunk and laughing and trading Simpsons quotes at each other and then one guys suddenly says, “Hey, hey guys, seriously, though. Seriously. WHAT ABOUT BOSNIA?”**

So there is that.

But this whole schtick about “Who is she to ASK THE PRESIDENT A QUESTION?” Well… um… fuck you, Conan. And fuck you, Gabe. (Respectfully.)

Who she is, is an American citizen. And if she’s lucky enough to get to sit next to the President for an hour, then I guess she gets to ask him whatever the fuck she wants. If it’s a stupid question (which it is), then yes, let us all laugh at her for that. And if we feel like the criteria that society sets for who does and does not get to be famous enough to sit next to the President for an hour is ridiculous (which it is), then yes, let us all talk about that.

But “Who is she to ask the President a question?” is, itself, a very stupid question. And you should be embarrassed for asking it.

P.S. If you gave me a WHOLE WEEK to come up with a question for Barack Obama, and then gave me the opportunity to ask it to his face, I would probably come up with something along the lines of “Do you watch Doctor Who?” And then, if you gave me a SECOND CHANCE to go back and do it better, it would be, “Why not?”

Facetaco is maybe busy or something, so I am going to take the mantle of disagreeing with you on this one, Gabe.
This is not Elizabeth Hasselbeck’s fault. She is stupid, yes, but American viewers and American executives put her on television, and have kept her there for some reason. This is way stupider.
What is ridiculous is that the President is on the show. What is more ridiculous than that is that he has to be on the show because it’s an important campaign stop. American viewers want to see idiots ask the President stupid questions more than they want to see him on Charlie Rose.
But why shouldn’t this idiot get to ask him questions, since he’s there?

Wasn’t she voted president of the island? A former head of state trading barbs with a current one is nothing new for daytime t.v. Who can forget Nixon and Kruschev’s Guiding Light debate moderated by Susan Flannery?

I disagree. If you go on a stupid garbage television show, expect to be asked stupid garbage questions.

Imagine if George W. Bush had gone on the view (maybe this actually happened, I dunno). Let’s also imagine that Rosie O’Donnell is there (she used to be on that show, remember?). And Rosie O’Donnell asked him some garbage about what *really* happened on 9/11. I think we would all cringe, but agree that that is the exact kind of garbage controversy we all expected from our favorite garbage morning show.

I don’t think the President should have been on The View, just in general, because I don’t particularly care about the soft, human side of him. Since he has to be there, honestly, it should all be softball garbage questions about what’s on your iPod because The View is for that soft, human interest angle and to deny that is just nonsense.
I don’t like The View pretending like it is the venue for hard-hitting political questions because it diminishes the tiniest bit of clout actual journalists and news venues still have in this arena. I do think that’s a big deal. We’ve had to suffer through ratings grabs from the 24 hour news networks all competing with things like The View and The Daily Show and The Internet so they’ve stopped trying to ask smart questions, find the real story, basically any of the things Aaron Sorkin tries to complain newsmen have lost with “The Newsroom.”

I do think Elisabeth Hasselbeck can ask the president whatever she wants, but letting her use this venue that normally talks about which New Jersey housewife is the bitchiest means we’re lowering asking real questions of the president to that freaking level. We’re already forced news networks to lower themselves enough. Can we at least reserve asking the president hard questions for news networks that are, at least in theory, supposed to be about these topics? I would much prefer to watch anyone on Fox News ask the same, and even tougher, questions to the president than watch the ladies of The View pretend like they thought about this interview for more than 5 minutes. I dunno… It just really rubs me the wrong way for The View OF ALL THINGS to be pretending to be putting the screws to world leaders. Why even let people study to be journalists anymore? Just go on Survivor, dye your hair blonde, and come in 20th and you’re set.

if there was one fucking phrase i could ban from the presidential election, it would be the phrase “middle class”. hell, the other day on npr they were talking about FOOD SECURITY ISSUES being MIDDLE CLASS. like, it is now MIDDLE CLASS to not be able to FEED YOURSELF. jesus h. christ.

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